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.J 

SPEECH OF HON. T. STEVENS, of Pennsylmi^ia, 

DELIVEEED 

In the House of Representatives, March 19, 1867, 

ON THE 

BILL (H. R. NO. 20) RELATIVE TO DAMAGES TO LOYAL MEN, AND FOR OTHER 

PURPOSES. 



Mr. STEVENS said- 
Mr. Speaker : I am about to discuss the ques- 
tion of the punishment of belligerent traitors by- 
enforcing the confiscation of their property to a 
certain extent, both as a punishment for their 
crimes and to pay the loyal men who have been 
robbed by the rebels, and to increase the 'pen- 
sions of our wounded soldiers. The punishment 
of traitors has been wholly ignored by a treach- 
erous Executive and by a sluggish Congress. I 
wish to make an issue before the American peo- 
ple, and see whether they will sanction the per- 
fect impunity of a murderous belligerent, and 
consent that the loyal men of this nation, who 
have been despoiled of their property, shall 
remain without remuneration, either by the 
rebel property or the property of the nation. 

To this issue I desire to devote the small 
remnant of mj life. I desire to make the issue 
before the people of my own State, and should 
be glad if the issue were to extend to other 
States. I desire the verdict of the people upon 
this great question. 

This bill is important to several classes of 
people. 

It is important to our wounded and maimed 
soldiers, who are unable to work for their living, 
and whose present pensions are wholly inade- 
quate to their support. It is important to those 
bereaved wives and parents whose habiliments 
of woe are to be seen in every house, and pro- 
claim the cruel losses which have been inflicted 
on them by the murderous hands of traitors. 

It is important to the loyal men. North and 
South, who have been plundered and impover- 
ished by rebel raiders and rebel Legislatures. 

It is important to four millions of injured, 
oppressed, and helpless men, whose ancestors for 
two centuries have been held in bondage and 
• compelled to earn the very property, a small 
portion of which we propose to restore to them, 
and who are now destitute, helpless, and ex- 
posed to want and starvation, under the delib- 
erate cruelty of their former masters. 

It is also important to the delinquents whose 
property it takes as a fine — a punishment for 
the great crime of making war to destroy the 
Republic, and for prosecuting the war in viola- 
tion of all the rules of civilized warfare. It is 
certainly too small a punishment for so deep a 
crime, and too slight a warning to future ages. 

No committee or party is responsible for this 
bill. It is chargeable to the President and my- 
self. Whatever merit it possesses is due to 
Andrew Johnson. In the summer of 1864 he 
said in a public speech : 

" Let me say now is tlie time to secure these fundamental 
principles, wliile the land is rent with anarchy and up- 
heaves with tlio throes of a mighty revolution. While so- 



ciety is in this disordered state and we are seekinf; security, 
let 113 fix the foundations of the Government on tlie priuci- 
pies of eternal justice, whicli will endure for all time. 

"Shall he wlio brought this misery upon tlie State be 
permitted to control its destinies? If this be so, then all 
this precious blood of our brave soldiers and ofBcers, so 
freely poured out, will have been wantonly spilled. All 
the glorious victories won by our noble armies will go for 
naught, and all the battle-fields which have been sown with 
dead heroes during the rebellion will have been made mem- 
orable in vain. 

"Why all this carnage and devastation? It was that 
treason might be put down and traitors punished. I say 
the traitor has ceased to be a citizen, and iu joining the 
rebellion has become a public enemy. 

" Treason must be made odious and traitors must \>e pun- 
ished and irnpoveriAed; tlieir great plantations must be 
seized and divided into small portions, and sold to honest, 
industrious men. The day for protecting the lands and no- 
groes of these authors of rebellion is past. It is hii;h time 
it was. I have been most deeply pained at some things 
which have come under my observation. Wo get men in 
command, who, under the influence of flattery, fawning, 
and caressing, grant protection to the traitor, while the 
poor Union man stands out in the cold." 

This is all the eloquen.t language of Andrew 
Johnson as " he was." This was the text which 
I took up and elaborated in a speech to my 
constituents at Lancaster, in September, 1865, 
and which has been much criticized by humane 
sympathizers with rebels. Andrew Johnson 
was the apostle whose preachings I followed. 
His doctrine pervades and animates this whole 
bill. Whatever of justice is in it is due to him, 
I call upon his friends to stand by him in this, 
his favorite policy. If you now desert him, 
who can yoa expect to defend the "much-en- 
during man" at the other end of the avenue? 
Having thus rendered unto Csesar the things 
that are Cassar's, I will proceed to defend the 
course recommended by him, who above all 
others knows what is due to traitors. 

This bill, it seems to me, can be condemned 
only by the criminals and their immediate 
friends, and by that unmanly kind of men 
whose intellectual and moral vigor has melted 
into a fluid vv^eakness which they mistake for 
mercy, and which is untempered with a single 
grain of justice, and to those religionists who 
mistake meanness for Christianity, and who 
forget that the essence of religion is to " do unto 
others what others have a right to expect from 
you." It is offensive to certain pretentious doc- 
tors of divinity, who are mawkishly prating 
about the "fatted calf, the prodigal son, and 
the forgiving father." They forget that there is 
no analogy between the cases. The thoughtless 
youth having received a part of his father's es- 
tate, and probably taking a load of corn to mar- 
ket, fell into bad company and contracted the 
loathsome vice of drunkenness, and spent the 
money in rioting and debauchery, and, like all 
drunkards, make his bed with the swine and 
fed on husks ; but, like one case only in a thou- 
sand, he reformed, joined the total abstinence so- 



. <ja'+*^ 



ciety, washed himself clean, brushed his clothes, 
and with repentant steps returned to his father's 
house. Well might his aged parent rejoice; 
well might he kill the fatteJ calf at such a res- 
cue. But how venial was such an offence com- 
pared with this murderous rebellion ! 

When the great ancestor of this bloody race 
had slain his brother, and tremblingly met his 
Judge and sought for pardon, what was the 
answer? " Tlie voice of thy brother's blood 
crieth unto me from the ground. And now art 
thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened 
her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from 
thy hand. When thou tillest the ground it 
shall not henceforth yield unto thee her 
strength ; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou 
be in the earth." When Cain cried out that his 
" punishment was more than he could bear," the 
Judge who administered justice in mercy drove 
him forth into stern, inexorable exile. He 
taught no forgiveness for such sins. He prated 
of no " fatted calves." 

I proceed to consider the bill. By the act of 
17th July, 1862, treason is made punishable by 
death or some smaller punishment, at the dis- 
cretion of the court. Before punishment can be 
intiicted for treason or misprision of treason the 
party must be duly convicted in a court of the 
United States. Not so with the balance of the 
bill. All the rest of that law (after the first 
four sections) refers to persons engaged in the 
belligerent army, or officially connected with the 
government known as the " Confederate States 
of America," or to those who voluntarily aided 
that power. While that law supposed that most 
of the people composing that army and govern- 
ment were traitors, yet they are dealt with in 
all the provisions which refer to confiscation 
merely as belligerents making an unjust war. 
The forfeitures which follow from a conviction 
for treason are left to the operations of the com- 
mon law. 

The fifth section enacts that- - 

''To insure the speeilj' termination t. the present rebel- 
lion, it shall be the duty of the President of the United States 
to cause the seizure of all the estates and property, money, 
Stocks, credits, and effects of the persoD.s luTeinafter named 
in this section, and apply and use the same and the pro- 
ceeds thereof for the Bupport of the Army of the United 
States." 

Then follow the enumeration of all the offi- 
cers of the army and navy of the confederate 
government : all civil officers of said govern- 
ment; all persons engaged in the army or navy, 
less they laid down their arms within a given time. 
or aiding said confederate States of America, un- 

To secure the condemnation of property thus 
seized, proceedings in rem are to be instituted 
wherever the property may be found, which 
proceeding shall follow the proceedings in ad- 
miralty or revenue cases, ana the same shall be 
condemned as enemies' property, and become 
the property of the United States, and the pro- 
ceeds paid into the Treasury of the United 
States. (Seventh section act of 17th July, 1SG2.) 
The eight section provides that the court shall 
make all necessary orders, and the marshal shall 
make deeds and conveyances for such property 
to the purchaser, and then such titles shall be 
good and valid. 

This law is unrepealed. It is in full force, and 



stands on the statute-book as one of the laws 
which the President swore to execute. (Would 
to God he had obeyed his oath ! Let us see that 
we obey ours.) 

It may be objected that the Government is 
stretching its powers in making such confisca- 
tions. That was a question well considered 
when the act of 1SG2 was passed. It must bo 
remembered that this is not an open question ; 
we are merely considering the enforcement of an 
existing law. But I will briefly review some of 
the arguments in favor of the right. We are 
treating these belligerents simply as enemies, 
and their property as enemies' property now in 
the possession and power of the conqueror. By 
the law of nations in its most stringent provi- 
sion all the property, liberty, and lives of a 
conquered enemy who has waged an unjust war 
are at the disposal of the victor. Modern civili- 
zation will seldom justify the exercise of the ex- 
treme right. The lives, the liberty, and, in 
most cases, the re.al property of the vanquished 
are left untouched. The property, however, of 
the vanquished is held in some shape liable to 
pay the expenses and damages sustained by the 
injured party. If peace is brought about by 
treaty, it is usually stipulated that the expenses 
and damages shall be paid by the defeated belli- 
gerent. As such remuneration must be levied 
as taxes on the subjects, it does subject all their 
property to this burden. Where there is no 
government capable of making terms of peace, 
the law-making power of the conqueror must fix 
the terms. This gives them sufficient right to 
take just such property as it may deern proper. 
Where the subdued belligerent is composed of 
traitors, their personal crimes aggravate their 
belligerent offence and justify severer treatment, 
just as a tribe of savages are treated with more 
rigor than civilized foes. 

From such a ]icople much more might and 
ought to be exacted than from an honorable 
enemy. Whenever example requires it, heavy 
fines should be imposed and the criminals re- 
duced to poverty, as was properly required by 
our excellent President. Vattel says : 

"When, therefore, he has subdued a hostile nation, bo 
undeniably may, in the first place, do himself .justice re- 
specting tlieol'ject which has given rise to tho war, and 
indemnify himself for tlie expenses and damages which he 
has sustained by it." 

Halleck (page 457) says that by strict right 
pro])erty on land and real estate is subject to 
seiznra, though seldom enforced with an ordi- 
nary enemy. 

All writers agree with Vattel, (page 369) — 

"Tlius a conqueror who has taken up arms not only 
against the sovereign, but against tho nation herself, and 
whose intention it was to subdue a fleice and savage peo- 
ple, and once for all to reduce an olistinato enemy, such a 
conqueror m.iy with justice lay burdens on the conquered 
nation, both as compensation for the expenses of the war 
and as a punishment." 

Ap[ily these principles to the case in hand. 
The cause of the war was slavery. We have 
liberated the slaves. It is our duty to protect 
them, and provide for them while they are un- 
able to provide for themselves. Have we not a 
right, in the language of Vattel, " to do our- 
selves justice respecting the object which has 
caused the war," by taking lands for homesteada 
for these " objects" of the war ? 



3 



1 Have we not a right, if we chose to go to that 

V extent, to indemnify ourselves for the expenses 

^ . and damagfts caused by the war ? We might 

H make the property of the enemy pay the $4,000,- 

^ 000,000 which we have expended, as v;ell as the 

^'^amages inflicted on lo5'al men by confiscation 

■ • and invasion, which might reach $1,000,000,000 

i/L more. This bill is merciful, asking less than one 

^ tenth of our just claims. 

We could be further justified in inflicting se- 
vere penalties upon this whole hostile people as 
"a fierce and savage people," as an " obstinate 
enemy," whom it is a duty to tame and punish. 
Our future safety requires stern justice. 

What more " savage or fierce people" than 
they who deliberately starved to death sixty 
thousand prisoners of war; who shot or reduced 
to bondage all captive soldiers of the colored 
race'; who sought to burn our cities through se- 
cret agents ; who sent infected materials into our 
most populous towns to destroy non-combatants, 
old men, women, and children, by the most 
loathsome and fatal diseases ; and who consum- 
mated their barbarism bjr the assassination of 
the mildest of rulers and the best of men? If 
this is not a "fierce and savage enemy," whom 
we have a right to reduce to absolute submission 
and dependence, point me out one to which the 
language of Vattel will apply. You would do 
great injustice to those mild savages who owed 
us no allegiance by pointing to those who per- 
petrated the massacre of Wyoming ; or to the 
Caraanches or the wild Indians of the West, or 
the fierce tribes of the Oronoco — and yet you 
seize their lands and expel them from their na- 
tive country. 

I suppose none will deny the right to confis- 
cate the preperty of the several belligerent 
States, as they all made war as States ; or of the 
Confederate States of America ; for no one ever 
denied the right of the conqueror to the crown 
property of the vanquished sovereign, even 
where the seizure of private property would not 
be justified by the circumstances. 

That would give us all called for by the first 
section of the bill. I believe Texas has about 
one hundred and ten million acres. She retained 
all her public lands at the time of annexation 
on the condition of paying her own debts ; and 
afterwards called on the United States Govern- 
ment for the payment of those very debts, and 
procured it. I know not how much the other 
States may have ; possibly enough to make up 
with Texas, one hundred and fifty million acres. 
But it is said that any of the property of the 
sovereign is subject to seizure by the conqueror. 
In ordinary wars between monarchies such is 
the fact; but that is not the case where war is 
made on a whole hostile people — "a fierce and 
savage people." But, admitting the limitation 
to prevail, still it does not obstruct us. 

Here is a belligerent made up of men whose 
crimes had forfeited all their rights, independ- 
ently of their belligerent liabilities. But beyond 
that, the case of republics is very diff'erent from 
absolute governments, where the people are 
responsible for nothing — are guilty of nothing. 
The sovereign and his estate may well be dis- 
tinguished from his subjects and their estates. 
But in republics the people — the whole people — 



are the sovereigns. All the responsibility of the 
acts of the Government falls upon all the peo- 
ple. Their individual property must answer for 
the expenses, damages, and indemnities which 
fall on the Government of the nation. The 
Romans, from whom we derive our national law, 
held that the private property of every citizen 
might be seized, because he was a sovereign, a 
part of the governing power. 

But it matters not what you may think of the 
efficiency of the act of July 17, 1862. The laws 
of war authorize us to take this property by our 
sovereign power — by a law now to be passed. 
We have a subdued enemy in our power ; we 
have all their property and lives at our disposal. 
No peace has been formed. No terms of peace 
or of reconciliation have been yet proclaimed, 
unless the proclamation of the President can 
make peace and war. The Constitution denies 
him any power in either case. Then, unless 
Andrew Johnson be king, the terms of peace 
are yet to be proclaimed. Among those terms, 
as we have shown, we have a right to impose/ 
confiscation of all their property — to "impov- 
erish " them, as Andrew Johnson has told us ; 
to "divide their large farms and sell them to 
industrious men." This is strict law and good 
common sense. Now, then, without reference 
to any former act, we have a right to seize the 
property named in this bill, and ten times more. 
You behold at your feet a conquered foe, an 
atrocious enemy. Tell him on what terms he 
may arise and depart or remain loyal. But dp 
not embrace him too hastily. Be sure first that 
there is no dagger in his girdle. The President 
has been throwing thick around him decrees 
and proclamations and speeches upon subjects 
wholly beyond his jurisdiction. He assumes 
that his declaration of a fact creates a fact, how- 
ever false it may be. His constitutions dictated 
to hordes of rebels ; his declaration that the 
States are States in the Union ; his proclamation 
that peace is restored, he has cunningly put 
forth as cumulative evidence of the condition of 
the " confederate Stateg." Not one of them is 
any better than waste paper. All put together 
are but accumulated nonsense. Does he expect 
to deceive or to bewilder Congress by such in- 
coherent assumptions? I think that Congress 
will proceed in that calm, unimpassioned, but 
unv^avering course which distinguishes the 
statesman from the demogogue. 

Having, as I conceive, justified the bill which 
I seek to have enforced, let us now look to the 
provisions of the bill under consideration. 

The first section orders the confiscation of all 
the property belonging to the State governments, 
and the national government which made war 
upon us, and which we have conquered. I pre- 
sume no one is prepared to object to this, unless 
it be those who condemned the conquest. To 
them I have nothing to say, except to hope that 
they will continue consistent in their love of the 
rebels ; to show an exuberant humanity into 
which is merged and submerged all the exalted 
feelings of patriotism. "*■ 

The second section requires the President to 
execute an existing law which he is sworn to 
execute, but the performance of which oath is in 
abeyance. Certainly such law should be en- 



forced or repealed ; it is a mockery to allow it 
to stand on your statute-books and be not only 
not enforced, but violated every day by tlie ex- 
ecutive government. 

Tiie third section furnishes a more convenient 
and speedy mode of adjudicating such forfeit- 
ures, and more consistent with the military con- 
dition of the conquered States. 

The fourth section provides, first, that out of the 
lands thus confiscated each liberated slave who 
is a male adult, or the head of a family, shall 
have assigned to him a homestead of forty acres 
of land, (with $100 to build a dwelling,) which 
shall be held for them by trustees during their 
pupilage. 

Let us consider whether this is a just and 
politic provision. 

Whatever may be the fate of the rest of the bill, 
I must earnestly pray that this may not be defeat- 
ed. On its success, in my judgment, depends not 
only the happiness and respectability of the col- 
ored race, but their very existence. Homesteads 
to them are far more valuable than the immedi- 
ate right of suffrage, though both are tlieir due. 

Four million of persons have just been freed 
from a condition of dependence, wholly unac- 
quainted with business transactions, kept sys- 
tematically in ignorance of all their rights and 
of the common elements of education, without 
which none of any race are competent to earn 
an honest living, to guard against the frauds 
which will always be practiced on the ignorant, 
or to judge of the most judicious manner of ap- 
plying their labor. But few of them are me- 
chanics, and none of them skilled manufacturers. 
They must necessarily, therefore, be the servants 
and victims of others, unless they are made in 
some measure independent of their wiser neigh- 
bors. The guardianship of the Freedmen's Bu- 
reau, that benevolent institution, cannot be 
expected long to protect them. It encounters 
the hostility of the old slaveholders, Avhether in 
official or private station, because it deprives 
these dethroned tyrants of the luxury of des- 
potism. In its nature it is not calculated for a 
permanent institution. Withdraw that protec- 
tion and leave them a prey to the legislation 
and treatment of their former masters, and the 
evidence already furnislied shows that they will 
soon become extinct, or driven to defend them- 
selves by civil war. Withhold from them all 
their rights, and leave them destitute of the 
means of earning a livelihood, the victims of 
the hatred or cupidity of the rebels whom they 
helped to conquer, and it seems probable that 
the war of races might ensue which the Presi- 
dent feared would arise from kind treatment 
and the re'storation of their rights. I doubt not 
that hundreds of thousands would annually be 
deposited in secret, unknown graves. Such is 
already the course of their rebel murderers; and 
it is done with impunity. The clearest evidence 
of that fact has already been shown by the tes- 
timony taken by the " Central Directory " 
Make them independent of tlieir old masters. 
so tliat they may not be compelled lo work for 
them upon unfair terms, which can only be done 
by_giving them a small tract of land" to culti- 
vate for themsclve.';, and you remove all this 
danger. You also elevate the character of the 



freedman. Nothing is so likely to make a man 
a good citizen as to make him a freeholder. 
Nothing will so multiply the productions of the 
South as to divide it into small farms. Nothing 
will make men so industrious and moral as to 
let them feel that they are above want and 
are the owners of the soil which they till. It 
will also be of service to the white inhabitants. 
They will have constantly among them indus- 
trious laborers, anxious to work for fair wages. 
How is it possible for them to cultivate tneir 
lands if these people were expelled ? If Moses 
should lead or drive them into exile, or carry 
out the absurd idea of colonizing them, the 
South would become a barren waste. 

When that wisest of monarchs, the Czar of 
Russia, compelled the liberation of twenty-five 
million serfs, he did not for a moment entertain 
the faolish idea of depriving his empire of their 
labor or of robbing tliem of their rights. He 
ordered their former owners to make some com- 
pensation for their unrequited toil, by conveying 
to them the very houses in which they lived 
and a portion of the land which they had tilled 
as serfs. The experiment has been a perfect 
success. It has brought the prosperity which 
God gives to wisdom and justice. Have they 
not a right to it ? I do not speak of their fidel- 
ity and services in this bloody war. I put it on 
the mere score of lawful earnings. They and 
their ancestors have toiled, not for years, but for 
ages, without one farthing of recompense. They 
have earned for their masters this very land and 
much more. Will not he who denies them com- 
pensation now be accursed, for he is an unjust^ 
man? Have we not upon this subject the re- 
corded decision of a Judge who never erred? 
Four million Jews were held in bondage in 
Egypt. Their slavery was mild compared with 
the slavery inflicted by Christians. For of all 
recorded slavery — Pagan, heathen, or Moham- 
medan — Christian slavery has been the most 
cruel and heartless; and of all Christian slavery, 
American slavery has been the worst. God, 
through no pretended, but a true Moses, led 
them out of bondage, as in our case, through a 
Red sea, at the cost, as in our case, of the first 
born of every household of the oppressor. Did 
he advise them to take no remuneration for 
their years of labor? No ! Pie understood too 
well what was due to justice. Pie commanded 
the men and the women to borrow from their 
confiding neighbors "jewels of silver and jew- 
els of gold and raiment." They obeyed him 
amply, and spoiled the Egyptians, and went 
forth full- handed. There was no blasphemer 
then to question God's decree of confiscation. 
This doctrine then was not " Satanic." lie who 
questions it now will be a blasphemer, whom 
God will bring to judgment. If we refuse to 
this down-trodden and o]>pressed race the rights 
which Heaven decreed them, and the remunera- 
tion which they have earned through long years, 
of hopeless oppression, how can we ho])e to es- 
cape still further punishment if God is just and, 
omnipotent? It may come in the shape of 
plagues or of intestine wars — race against race,, 
the ojjpressed against the op[)ressor. But come 
it will. Seek not to divert our attention from 
justice by a puerile cry of fatted calves! 



5 



The fifth section provides that $500,000,000 
shall be raised out of the confiscated property 
for two purposes : the increase of the pensions 
of our soldiers and the payment to loyal de- 
spoiled citizens. Is there any injustice in this ? 
We have seen that by the law of nations they 
were liable to pay all the expenses and damages 
of the war. Those expenses cannot be less than 
five billion dollars, including our debt and what 
was paid with taxes ; the damages were proba- 
bly lialf a billion more. To exact but one 
tenth part is mercy unexampled in national 
magnanimity. In the great munity in India, 
in which so many millions of the original own- 
ers of the soil were engaged, and who held pro- 
prietary rights under well-defined titles, the 
Government declared that their engagements 
had been canceled by the rebellion, and that the 
proprietary right in the soil was confiscated to 
the Government, which would dispose of that 
" right as to it might seem fitting." No one 
ever complained that this exceeded the power 
of the victors. Why so tender when a small 
punishment is to be inflicted on our enemy ? 
Three hundred million dollars put at interest at 
six per cent, would just about double present 
pensions. Eight dollars a month to men un- 
able to work is wholly inadequate to their ne- 
cessities. That rate was fixed when the pay of 
soldiers was but eight dollars per month ; it is 
now sixteen dollars. The increased price of all 
the necessaries of life renders that necessary. 
The pension should be increased in the same 
proportion. Their present allowance is a mere 
mockery ; it must be doubled out of some fund. 
Shall it be at the cost of loyal men, or of those 
who mangled and slew our noble soldiers ? You 
talk of pity. Pity for whom ? Your tears flow 
for pompous traitors : ours, for maimed, halting, 
crippjed patriots. 

1 know there is aery for the perfect impunity 
of the enemy. It is a dangerous and unwhole- 
some doctrine. Inflict salutary puuishmente to 
prevent future civil wars and to punish the 
criminals ; " their brothers' blood cries to us 
from the earth, which has opened its mouth to 
receive their brothers' blood from their hands;". 
all this blood cannot sink into the ground un- 
avenged ; the ghosts of these murdered martyrs 
will not down, but will haunt their murderers 
to"the bar of eternal judgment. 

Is there anytliing in the practice of nations 
to condemn this confiscation? Nothing; but 
everything to justify it. Wiien a city of people 
in alliance with Rome conspired to levy war 
against her, on bein» <;onqueredshe was not un- 
frequently deprived of half her population and 
their lands taken and given to Roman colonists. 
Where all is justly forfeited, including their 
lives, to leave them a part is great mercy. I 
need not cite the extRnples of Greece and Mace- 
donia. They were severer than Rome. Now, I 
would not exact much personal punishment. I 
have never believed in bloody penalties. I have 
long since adopted the milder views of Boccaria 
and Montesquieu. But when I say that, it does 
not mean impunity to criminals. Heavy pecu- 
niary punishments should take the place of per- 
sonal inflictions. Rome at one time decreed 
that no blood should be shed except in hostile 



conflict. But for making war on the republic 
and lesser crimes she interdicted to the " male- 
factor fire and water," which was the form of her 
sentence of banishment. Such banishment in- 
volved the forfeiture of all their estate, real as 
well as personal. While they allov/ed the male- 
factor to depart with life, they reduced him to 
poverty. Such was the fate of Ciceio when he- 
went into exile. It was from the study of this 
Roman law, no doubt, that our learned Presi- 
dent took the idea contained in his speech, 
" traitors must be impoverished." He will, I 
hope, pardon us for not being hard-hearted 
enough fully to carry out his wishes. 

Certain gentlemen seem hard to learn, either 
from the writings of learned publicists, or from 
the passing and visible events of the present 
age. The German empire liad many feat.ures 
similar to our own. It was composed of thirty- 
eight States, each independent in its own muni- 
cipal government and laws, but each subject 
to the general government of the empire in 
whatever came within its jurisdiction By its 
constitution all the States were pledged to per- 
petual union. This pledge had come down to 
them through ages. It had a congress of mem- 
bers from each of the States, which was sitting 
permanently, whose acts were to bind each 
member of the confederacy. War broke out 
between two of the principal Powers. The 
minor States ranged themselves under the ban- 
ner of the one or the other. Prussia triumphed. 
Did the constituent party say, "We lay down 
our arms ; peace ensues ; and we claim our old 
rights as they were under the constitution of 
the German empire? We could not go out of 
that empire, for our constitution declared that 
it should be perpetual." No. None of the van- 
quished Powers were so idiotic as to set up such 
pretences. No one was fooHsh enough to sug- 
gest it to the conqueror. Prussia took up these 
siibmissive States and dealt with them according 
to the universally acknowledged laws of war. 
She first imposed the expenses of the war upon 
the conquered belligerents according to what she 
deemed equitable. Austria bore forty-five 
millions. Saxony ten millions, Bavaria three 
millions, and so on. She refused to let the 
States participate in the Government, but incor- 
porated several of them into tlie kingdom of 
Prussia. Why do not these injured parties in- 
voke the indignation of the civilized world? 
Because they know that the verdict would be 
agaiust them. They knew that the war destroyed 
the constitiftion of the Germhn empire and an- 
nulled the treaties of 1815; that all must be 
subject to the will of the conqueror. Where is 
our statesmanship, tliat we suffer the enemy to 
escape from tlie payment of the cost and dam- 
ages of the war? Where is our patience, that 
we suffer them to clamor about rights under the 
Constitution ? Wliere is our courage, that we suf- 
fer the President to head this new rebellion ? 

The remaining part of the sum levied, to 
wit, $200,000,000, is to remunerate loyal men 
in both sections, who, in consequence of their 
loyalty, have been plundered and had their 
property destroyed by the invading armies and 
raiders of the enemy, or by the unjust seizure 
and confiscation of the property of loyal men 



6 



in the rebel States. Who objects to this? Who- 
ever does, let him put his name on record, that 
the country may fairly judge on which side his 
sympathies lie. By the usages of nations the 
property of the citizens of the belligerent Power 
taken or destroyed as a military necessity is 
paid by the Government. But property taken 
■ or destroyed by the enemy is not paid by the 
Government. Strictly speaking, the property of 
citizens of the hostile Government, though 
friendly to the conqueror, cannot be charged to 
the victor. But in civil wars it seems to me 
that a distinction should be made, and those 
who had suffered for their adherence to the 
parent Government should be taken care of in 
adjusting the conditions of peace. We know 
there are loyal men in the South who are large 
eufferers. There are a still larger number in 
the North who are made larger sufferers, neither 
of whom have any chance of being remunerated 
except through this congre.ssion'al legislation. 
Neitlaer of them can ever receive a dollar out of 
the Treasury of the United States. I know not 
whether $200,000,000 will pay them. Certainly 
• t would be a great relief. I need not enumerate 
the sort of damages to which I refer. Southern 
loyalists who have suffered are everywhere to 
be seen. The valley of Virginia and the 
-course of Sheridan'a operations are full of them. 
The smoking ruins of Lawrence and Chambers- 
burg, almost every county of Missouri and 
Maryland, and the frontier portions of Ohio, 
are samples of the latter. 

If the war had been between two regular 
governments, both of which survived the war, 
the victors, in the treaty of peace, would require 
the vanquished to pay all such damages, as well 
as all the expenses of the war. If neither had 
conquered the other, they would probably be 
silent, and each bear his own loss. Congress is 
dictating the terms of peace. If she does not 
provide for these meritorious claimants, she will 
be bound in honor to pay them out of the Na- 
tional Treasury. If she does not, individuals 
will be wronged and the nation dishonored. 
This bill is very merciful toward a cruel, out- 
lawed belligerent, who, when their armies were 
dispersed, would gladly have compromised if 
their lives were saved. Those who will be af- 
fected by this bill will not exceed seventy thou- 
sand, out of a population of six million whites, 
for this is a people of aristocrats and subjects — 
of a proud nobility and a cringing, poor peas- 
antry. Those seventy thousand persons own 
about three hundred and ninety milHon acres of 
land out of the five hundred million in the confed- 
erate States. This, together with the town prop- 
erty, cannot be worth less than $10,000,000,000. 
This estimate includes no man's property who was 
worth less than $10,000 ; nor does it include any 
personal property, which may, perhaps, swell it 
to $12,000,000,000. The fine proposed would be 
but one-twentieth of their estates. Were ever such 
great malefactors so gently dealt with ? It wero 
well if all their large estates could be subdivided 
and sold in small tracts. No people will ever be 
republican in spirit and practice where a few own 
immense manors and the masses are landless. 
Small independent landholders are the support 
and guardians of republican liberty. 



But it is said that very many of these men 
have been pardoned by the President, and their 
forfeited estates restored to them. 

I must take the liberty to deny that any par- 
don, or any other power vested in the Prcs"ident, 
can withdraw these forfeited estates from the 
confiscation decreed by Congress. Nothing less 
than an act of Congress can divest them from 
tlie United States and bestow them on tlie par- 
doned belligerents. No one denies that the 
President possesses the pardoning power. This 
power is conferred on the Chief Executive for 
wise purposes — te correct the errors and mis- 
takes of courts, and imperfections of human 
laws. Bacon says : 

•'The power of pardoning offences i.s inseparably incident 
to the crown, and this high prerogative the kingisiutrnsted 
with upon a special confidence that ho will spare those only 
whose case, could it be foreseen, the law itself may be pre- 
sumed willing to have excepted out of the general rules 
which the wisdom of man cannot po,«sibly make so perfect 
as to suit every particular case." (6 Bac. Abr., 138.) 

How well the President has adhered to the 
object of this high prerogative others must 
judge. The special pardons granted cannot in- 
deed be over four thousand of the subjects of 
confiscation. 

The pardons are granted for the crime of trea- 
son. 

I shall not question that such pardons may 
be pleaded in bar of any prosecution for trea- 
son, and save the traitor's property from the 
forfeiture which results from the conviction of 
that crime. 

But the act of July 17, 1862, under which 
these forfeitures arise, has no reference to trea- 
son, (except the first four sections, under which 
we do not ask the action of the Executive.) It 
declares the property of certain belligerents, 
enemies of the United States, subject to seizure, 
and orders it to be appropriated, as enemies' 
property, to the service of the United States 
Cxovei-nment. In perfecting the forfeiture, it 
does not pretend to prosecute the owners for 
erime, but treats their property as that of any 
enemy who was captured as lawful prize. How 
can the President by a pardon restore the prop- 
erty thus vested in the United States? Suppose 
the delinquent were an alien enemy, and as such 
his property or land was ordered to be seized by 
act of Congress? Could the President dispense 
with that law by his sovereign power and ar- 
rest the forfeiture in its transit to the Treasury? 
The belligerent has been guilty of no crime as 
belligerent of which the Executive could ab- 
solve him. Neither the war-making power nor 
the power to make peace is in the President. 
The power to declare war is vested in Congress 
alone. The power to make peace rests with the 
President and the Senate. The power to dis- 
pose of the property of a conquered people is 
vested in the sovereign law-making power of 
the nation, which in this Republic is Congress. 
A king of England once claimed and exercised 
the right to dispense with an actof Parliament; 
but the Parliament vindicated its rights, and by 
an act (1 Ws., Ill) declared all such pardons 
and charters void, and that no " dispensation by 
non obstante of or to any statute or any part 
thereof bo allowed." Have we the courage and 
the virtue of our British ancestors ? 



But at the most the pardons extend to but 
fourteen thousand out of seventy thousand 
wealthy belligerents. While there is not the 
least pretense in law that the President, by par- 
don or otherwise, can wrest this property from 
the Government, yet it is melancholy that the 
Executive should confederate with traitors, and 
by his own act and on his own individual re- 
sponsibility attempt to take billions out of the 
Treasury of the United States to enrich bloody 
traitors ; to impose burdens on the loyal men 
who risked life and property to save the nation 
that fawning rebels might live in affluence and 
glorify him. But even if all those now par- 
doned were beyond our reach, there are still sev- 
eral tliousands who are not shielded by these 
potential charters. That will suffice for tae 
small sum which this bill requires. 

While all must mourn over the melancholy 
spectacle of the attempted robbery of loyal men 
and the suffering relations of the martyrs of 
liberty bj^ one who should be their guardian, 
let us deal fairly and place the responsibility 
where it justly belongs. Andrew Johnson, be- 
fore he was President, held, as we have seen, 
the following language. In a speech already 
referred to, made in the summer of 1864, he 
said : 

"Why all this carnage and devastation? It was that 
treason might be put down and traitors punished ; there- 
fore I say tliat traitors should lake a hack seat in the work 
of reconstruction. [No "restoration" then.] I say the 
traitor has ceased to be a citizen, and in joining the rebel- 
lion ^las become a public enemy. lie foifeitod his right to 
vote with loyal men wlien he renounced his citizenship and 
sought to destroj' our (Jovernment. [Then there was no be- 
ing in the Union and entitled to " equal rights.''] Treason 
must be made odious, and traitors must bo punished and 
impoverished. Their great plantations must be seized and 
divided into small farms, and sold to honest, industrious 
men. The day for protecting the lands and negroes of 
these authors of rebellion is past. It is liish time it was. 
I have been most deeply pained at some things which have 
come under m y observation. We get men into command 
who, under the influenceof flattery, fawning, and caressing, 
grant protection to tlio traitor, while the poor tiniou man 
stands out in the cold, often unable to get a receipt or a 
voucher for his b'Sses." 

How well he describes men when they get in 
command, " who, under the influence of flattery, 
fawning, and caressing, grant protection to trai- 
tors, while loyal Union men stand out in the 
cold." For some time after he " got in command " 
he held the same honest language: but, unfortu- 
nately, he had inherited the prime minister, the 
chief bane of his predecessor, who, oilj and 
adroit, gradually gained his confidence and mis- 
led his judgment. He boasts that the plan of 
the Administration is his plan, invented by him, 
and carried on by him Thia is doubtless true. 
It cannot be the President's plan, for it contra- 
dicts all his well-considered declarations ; but 
in process of time he was beguiled. While he 
was " clothed and in his right mind " he uttered 
the thoughts and sentiments of a statesman ; but 
Seward entered into him, and ever since they 
have both been running down &teep places into 
the sea. Nor do I expect he will be cast out 
without " sore rending." 

Without impeaching the motives of the Presi- 
dent, it is the duty of Congress, in vindication 
of its proper rights and prerogatives, fo declare 
that he has arrogated to himself powers and 
attempted to do and enforce acts for which he 



can find no warrant in the Constitution and 
laws of the nation. Invested as he is with the 
command of the Army and Navy, with all the 
executive powers of the different departments, 
if he should be permitted to usurp still further 
powers,- and take control of the States, and the 
organization of Congress, is there not danger 
that some future Executive, some ambitious 
Cassar, will cross th^ Rubicon and march his 
legions upon the capital ? While protecting the 
President in the exercise of all his legitimate 
duties, and in times of national peril making 
large allowance for patriotic acts of doubtful 
legality, great care should be taken that he does 
not draw to himself all the powers of Govern- 
ment, and thus enable him to become a despot. 
This is one of the sacred duties of Congress, 
which if they fail to discharge they deserve the 
severest censure, for they betray a nation ; nay 
more, they betray the cause of universal liberty. 
To maintain this position is difficult, and re- 
quires great fortitude and moral courage. How 
apt is poor human nature to yield to the smiles 
or the frowns of power. How difficult to de- 
termine to cast from you all chance of influence 
and patronage? How difiicult to resist the 
temptations of oflSce and emolument ? And yet 
all this must be done, or this great people, in- 
stead of being free, will become the heritage of 
tyrants. 

Ten States of this Union have cast off their 
allegiance, and by the common acknowledgment 
of all have forfeited all their rights under the 
Constitution. To become again legimate States 
in the Union, so as to entitle them to equal 
rights with the other States, the Constitution 
requires the sanction of Congress. It matters 
not whether such power is attributed to the pro- 
vision to admit new States, or to the clause 
guarantying republican forms of government ; 
in either case Congress is the only power au- 
thorized to act ; so has the Supreme Court of the 
United States decided in Luther vs. Borden, and 
elsewhere. The law-making power providing for 
the case, the President's whole functions are to 
execute the laws. If the "Confederate States of 
America" are a conquered Power, the President, 
as Commander-in-Chief, may hold them in 
military rule until the sovereign power of the 
nation declares by what 'aws they shall be 
governed. Sovereignty rests with the people, 
ani is exercised through their representatives 
in Congress. But the President has assumed 
not only the military control of those con- 
quered States, but he has attempted to give the 
force of laws to his proclamations and decrees, 
whereby he has determined what acts shall 
entitle them to all the rights of States in the 
Union. He has imposed upon them forms of 
government without their consent, and without 
the consent of Congress. He has allowed a 
small minority of their votes to register his 
constitutions, and, without submitting them to 
the ratification of the people, he has declared 
thera legitimate, organic laws, and the States 
"reconstructed.'' He has imperiouslj' required 
of Congress to treat them as equal in all their 
rights to the loyal States, without inquiry 
whether they are entitled to representation, 
and dogmatically informed thera that their only 



8 



power is " each House for itself to inquire into 
the qualification and election of memciers who 

E resent themselves and claim their seats." If 
is order is not obeyed, he obstructs legislation 
and " forbids" Congress to pass laws in the 
absence of such members. What more could a 
king do but place the crown upon his liead? 
The king of England, for one huudred and tlfty 
years, has not ventured to oppose his single will 
to the will of the nation and veto a bill which 
had passed the rarliament of the realm. Eng- 
land has had her servile and timid Commons 
ready to register the edicts of the Crown ; but 
for the last hundred years such a body would 
have been hurled from power and doomed to 
infamy by the English people and by history. 
We are now undergoing the test of courage 
and the integrity of a Republican Congress. 
How many may be craven none can tell. For 
who can judge of his own strengtii? History 
will record their names. Men now obscure 
may thus obtain the advantage of becoming 
famous. 

But it is said that Mr. Johnson is but carrying 
out the policy of Mr. Lincoln. That, if true, 
would not justify his errors. But it is not true. 
In the midst of the war Mr. Lincoln had but 
little time or little occasion to examine into the 
question of reconstruction. Until the enemy 
was conquered everything was made subservient 
to that great object. Attempts to distract the 
" confederate " government were made by recog- 
nizing parts of her territory as loyal. Such was 
the case with small portions of Louisiana. The 
President encouraged them to assume the form 
of a State; but Congress never sanctioned it. 
The President, by his message and proclamation 
of December, 1863, suggested a mode of recon- 
struction ; but in it he distinctly disclaimed all 
right to control Congress in the matter, and de- 
clared that his suggestion of a plan did not 
exclude other plans. He said : 

" For the same reason it may be proper to say that, 
whether members Kent to Congress from any State shall be 
odmitted to seats constitution,\Ily, rests exehisively -with 
the respective Houses, and not to any extent with the Kx- 
ecutive." 

He defines more carefully what he meant in 
this proclamation in a well-prepared speech de- 
livered three days before his death, (11th of 
April, 1SG5.) He said : 

" In this I have done just so much and no more than the 
public knows. In the annual message of Decemtier, 1S63, 
and accompanying proclamation, I presented a plan of re- 
construction (as the phrase goes) which I pi'omised, if 
adopted by any State, should be acceptable to and sustained 
by the Executive government of the nation. I distinctly 
Itated that this was not the only plan which might possil)ly 
be acceptable; and I also distinctly protested that the 
Executive claimed no right to say when or whether mem- 
bers should be admitted to seats in Congress from such 
States." 

How different from our present Secretary of 
State ! 

That good man, who never willingly infringed 
upon the rights of any other department of the 
Government, expressly accorded to Congress 
alone the power to declare "when or whether 
members should be admitted to their seats in 
Congress from such States." It is not to be 
denied that his anxiety for the admission of 
members from Louisiana — or ratlior from New 
Orleans and adjoining parishes — gave uneasi- 



ness to the country. The people had begun to 
fear that he was misled, and was about to fall 
iuto error. If he- would have fallen into thai 
course, it is well for his reputation that he did 
not live to execute it. From being the most 
popular, he would have left office the most un- 
popular man that ever occupied the executivq 
chair. But that overruling Providence that so 
well guided him did not permit such a calamity 
to befall him. He allowed him to acquire a 
most enviable reputation, and then.bol'oro thero 
v/as a single spot upon it, " he sailed into the 
fiery sunset," 

"And left sweet mnsic in Cathay." 

Here, if there were anything in common but 
their station, what a temptation to draw a par- 
allel. But it would be unprofitable ; especially 
in this debate. For what we saj- fit the graves 
of admired friends or statesmen or heroes is not 
biography. The stern pen of history will strip 
such eulogies of their meretricious qrnarnents. 
But there is no danger that the highest praise 
that the most devoted friends could bestow on 
him would ever be reversed by posterity. So 
solid was the material of which his whole char- 
acter was formed, that the more it is rubbed the 
brighter it will shine. Mr. Lincoln, also, was 
of humble origin, (and who is not that is formed 
of the coarse clay of hrimanity ?) and earned his 
living by manual labor. But he had too good 
taste ever to boast of the aceident of liis birth, 
or to weary the public ear with the tautological 
recital of his mental employments. He roseto 
the Chief Magistracy of the great Republic by 
his sterling patriotism, sober habits, and modest 
worth. He was not thrown into power by any 
moral or political convulsion. His elevation 
was no accident, but the result of the cool judg- 
ment of a nation of freemen. No man ever 
assumed such vast responsibilities under such 
ditficult circumstances, except, perhaps, William 
the Silent. How similar in their lives ; how 
alike in deaths. 

If there was danger, and I admit there was 
some apprehension that Mr. Lincoln would be 
beguiled bj- his chief adviser into a course which 
would have tarnished his well-earned fame, that 
good Guardian who had guided him so well 
kindlj' preserved him from tliat calamity. Death 
is terrible. Death in high places is still more 
lamentable ; but every day is showing that there 
are things more terrible than death. It was 
better that his post humousfame should be un- 
spotted than that he should endure a few mora 
years of trouble on earth. All must regret the 
manner of his death ; yet, looking to futurity 
and to his own personal position, it may be con- 
sidered happy. From the height of his glory 
he beheld the promised land, and was with- 
drawn from our sight. In the mii^st of the 
most exquisite enjoyment of his favorite relaxa- 
tion he was instantaneously taken away with- 
out suffering one pang of death. Like the 
prophet of the Lord, who knew not death, ha 
was wrapt from earth to heaven along a track 
no less luminous than his who ascended in a 
chariot of fire with horses of fire. Would to 
God that some small portion of the mantle of 
our Elijah had fallen on his Elisha. 



